Note 222 — Chapter V · Magic Rites connected with the Several Departments of Nature (continued 2)

How women should reap on ordinary occasions.—Whenever women go out to reap they should repeat certain charms before leaving the house,222 and again before depositing their baskets on the ground. Their heads should be covered, and they should always be careful to reap, as has been said, facing the sun, to prevent their shadow from falling upon the rice in the basket at their side. Occasionally, however, the body is uncovered, and I was even told of one, Inche Fatimah of Jugra, in Selangor, who when reaping stripped herself bare from the waist upwards, and when asked why she did so said it was “to make the rice-husks thinner, as she was tired of pounding thick-husked rice.”